


Thicker Than Water

by WritingRampant



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingRampant/pseuds/WritingRampant
Summary: A new drug is chewing its way through Gotham City, untraceable and untreatable. Damian, fresh from university, now carries the Batman mantle and is determined to find the drug’s source. To do so he must enlist the help of his father’s new butler, a woman whom none of the family is sure they can trust, who can whip up both delectable pastries and deadly incendiaries.





	1. Chapter 1

There was nothing extraordinary about the scent of maple and cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. It was Tuesday and thus, waffles. Damian’s stomach rumbled appreciatively.

  
The winter sun was just rising as he emerged from his room. Hair still wet and skin smarting from hot water, he made his way downstairs.

  
“Good morning, Father.”

  
He received the customary grunt in response. The screen of the tablet turned his father’s glasses opaque. Damian sat in his usual place and poured hot water over his tea leaves.

  
“GCPD reports the capture of Nightfox,” his father said after a few minutes of silence.

  
Damian hid his smirk behind his mug.

  
“Article cites an inside source, saying suits were involved.” The tablet tilted down to reveal a scowl. “I thought I told you to drop the Nightfox case.”

  
Damian unfolded his napkin with a flick of his wrist. “I did.”

  
“Off a five story building.”

  
“Hyperbole. It was two stories. And a dumpster broke his fall.”

  
“A dumpster full of construction waste.”

  
“He should have robbed a mattress store.”

  
Bruce let out an exasperated sigh. “Damian, you can’t -“

  
What he couldn’t do was cut off by Alfred arriving with a platter of waffles, eggs, and other sundries.

  
Damian helped himself liberally and let his father’s scold wash over him. He finished his first plate as the lecture did.

  
“...disgrace the name,” his father snapped.  
He suspected his father’s anger carried a tinge of guilt. Damian cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You never dropped anyone off a building?”

  
“Not someone like Nightfox,” came the swift counter. “Some d-list part-timer. The man probably has a family, a job. And now his legs are broken.”

  
“Leg,” Damian corrected, watching maple syrup pool in the crisp hollows of his second helping. “His left tibia, four ribs, and the right radius. Also, a minor subdural bleed.”

  
This grunt was more a growl. Damian gave him a bland, unapologetic smile. “He is in Mercy Central as we speak. Should be there a few days for observation. Plenty of time to review the Wayne Rehabilitation Program literature left by his bed.”

  
He could sense there were more angry words just behind his father’s teeth. But his father wasn’t Batman anymore.

  
Damian was. And as such, he got to choose who was dropped off buildings and who wasn’t.

  
Alfred was back. Damian handed him his plate.

  
“Excellent, as always, Pennyworth.”

  
Alfred smiled his thin smile. “Thank you, Master Damian. And may I say again, it is a pleasure to have you home with us.”

  
Damian would never admit it, but the three years he’d spent at university were the worst of his life. Including his time with his mother. He had never experienced homesickness before and quickly determined it was about the most miserable feeling a man could suffer.

  
“I did miss your waffles, Pennyworth.”

  
Alfred smiled again, a different smile, almost secretive. “Even amidst the gastronomical delights of Paris?”

  
“Too much butter.”

  
Bruce laughed abruptly. “I had assumed the pâtés would turn you off.”

  
His father’s phone rang. He answered with a terse, “Wayne.”

  
Damian stretched sore legs under the table as his father listened.

  
“Yes…yes…I see…no. Tell them absolutely…I’ll be there shortly.”

Alfred’s expression went prim as he collected his employer’s plate. “Certainly Master Tim can —“

  
“Tim’s in Colombia,” Bruce said wearily. “And Powers won’t speak to him in any case.”

  
Damian twisted his foot to target his achilles. “Drake’s business official or no?”

  
“Acquiring holdings,” Bruce explained and drained his coffee. “Won’t be back until next week. Don’t wait for me, Alfred. This will likely take all day. Damian, I left some files for you to review on the main hard drive. Let me know what you think.”  
“Yes, father.”

  
“And stop dropping people off buildings!”

  
Alfred declined Damian’s help clearing the table. “Run along, Master Damian.”

  
So he did. Around the track in the cave, five miles. Then a hour of Dick’s favorite torture routine, stretching, bending, tumbling. Weights, more running, and a muscle burning climb up the cave wall without a line.

  
He finished with sweat dripping from his chin. Too much butter and not enough exercise. There were only so many hours he could spend in the university’s gymnasium without drawing attention. He was woefully out of shape, especially for Batman.

  
The cowl watched him from inside its plexiglass enclosure. He stared back, as always startled to find himself eye to eye with it. It had seemed an impossible goal, giant, unreachable.

  
Yet here he was. With the bruises to prove it.  
His stomach growled again. This past month he had eaten more than his three years in France together. He had forgotten how strenuous this life was.

  
More delicious scents drew him to the kitchen. He didn’t remember Alfred being so heavy with the garlic, but he certainly didn’t mind. American food, if it wasn’t fiery spicy, was bland and salty. Something he missed from his childhood; just about the only thing.

  
“Pennyworth, have you seen my —“  
Damian froze. The woman at the stove did too.

  
He gaped at her. “Who the hell are you?”

  
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m—.”

  
“Pennyworth!”

  
Alfred came in from the pantry. “Yes, Master Damian?”

  
“Who is this woman?”

  
Alfred looked bemusedly where Damian pointed. “That is Miss Aine.”

  
“What is she doing here?” His father can’t have adopted _another_ child, could he?

  
“She works here.”

  
Damian simply gaped at his father’s butler. There was nothing more he could do, not with her listening in.

  
“You enjoyed her efforts this morning.”  
Damian found words. “You _lied_ to me? About _waffles_?” Stupid words, but all he could dredge up.

  
Alfred smirked. _Smirked_! “Certainly not, my boy. Merely borrowed Miss Aine’s laurels.”

  
This Miss Aine laughed then. She came forward, hand extended.

  
“Pleasure, sir. Alfred has told me much about you.”

  
Damian ignored her. “Does father know about this?”

  
“Yes.” But Damian heard the slight hesitation.

  
“Get rid of her.”

  
He stormed out.

His father sounded weary over the phone.  
“In a meeting.”

  
“Pennyworth hired some stranger to be our cook.”

  
His father sighed and Damian imagined he rubbed his face. “Yes, he said he wanted to find someone—“

  
“The risk—!”

  
“He said she would be vetted by—“

  
“No!”

  
“Damian, I don’t have time for—“

  
Damian hung up, fuming. He scowled at the monitor screen.

  
The security cameras supplied her face and the search engine Drake programmed found her information in moments.

  
Not much. Aine Ryan. Born in Ireland, lived in England, then America. Explained the hint of an accent. Mid thirties, never married. Mother dead, father retired from some industrial job. School in New York. List of employers: private residences, restaurants, a high-end resort.  
Bank accounts, driver’s license, the usual paper trail.

  
“I could have saved you the time,” Alfred said dryly.

  
“She can’t stay.”

  
“Don’t you like her cooking?”

  
Damian swore expertly in French, then Arabic, and finally in good old Jersey. “How long has she been here?”

  
“Two weeks.”

  
“Two weeks? And you didn’t think to tell me?”  
“Damian—“

  
“I could have said something, she could have overheard!”

  
“Damian—“

  
“She could have seen me suited up!”

  
Alfred gave an exasperated sigh. “Do not think I have not considered all these concerns, Master Damian.”

  
“Father agreed to this?”

  
“Begrudgingly,” Alfred admitted.

  
“Why?”

  
“Because I am old.”

  
Damian bit down on his sharp retort. The man was. Had been nearing middle-aged when he came to work for Damian’s grandparents decades ago.

  
Though still firm, the shoulders stooped a little. His hands were gaunt, the joints standing out. Hair thinned and thinning.

  
Damian pressed his hands to his eyes. “What have you told her?”

  
“That you are an active young man, fresh from schooling abroad. That you are of irregular habits, with a special interest in criminology and psychology, as well as the martial arts.”

  
Damian was running out of expletives. “You may as well paint ‘I’m Batman’ on my forehead.”

  
Alfred chuckled. “She assures me she has worked for far more eccentric employers.”

  
“Why an outsider? Why not someone we know?”

  
“Don’t be dense, my boy. Who do we know who isn’t a suit?”

  
Damian grumbled, but followed him back to the kitchen.

  
Ryan eyed him over the cake she was glazing.

“I apologize,” Damian said evenly. “I was taken by surprise.”

  
She accepted this with cold graciousness. “I assumed you knew of my employment. Forgive me, sir.”

  
Damian held himself still, wanting to shuffle his feet. “Certainly.”

  
“Would you like some lunch, sir?”  
“Yes, thank you.”

  
It was delicious and every bite a betrayal. Alfred watched him with an uneasy frown.

  
“She comes highly recommended. Her background is impeccable.”

  
Drake’s system would have found anything concerning. “Recommended by whom?”

  
“A friend of mine, his grand-niece.” He saw Damian’s quick glance. “I do have friends, Damian.”

  
“What, do you sit around and talk about butler-ing?”

  
“And play rummy.”

  
Damian choked on a laugh. Alfred patted his shoulder. “We will see how this goes. If she doesn’t fit…well, money can buy many things. Including silence.”

  
“She isn’t to be told until I decide.”  
“Of course.”

  
“She knows I’m a vegetarian, right?”

  
“Hardly the most specialized diet she has catered to, she says.”

  
“Was that a chef pun?”

  
“Certainly not, young sir. A low form of humor.”

He pounced on his father the moment he arrived home late that evening.  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

  
“Because I knew you would behave exactly as you are now.”

  
Damian clamped his teeth on his retort. His father winced as he slid his arm out of coat. A front was moving over Gotham, bringing cold wind.

  
“Damian, do you think I didn’t run her through every possible background check, check all her references and previous employers, and subject her to a complete psychological examination?”

  
Speaking of aging. His father’s eyes were tired and the lines by his mouth were deeper than Damian remembered. He let the Ryan thing go. For now. A tactical retreat.

  
“What did Powers want?”

  
“More merger talk.”

  
“You cannot be considering such a move!”

  
“So, now you want to start taking an interest in the company?”

  
Damian seethed. “Just because Drake’s tapped for COO doesn’t mean—“

  
Bruce dropped his coat on the closest chair. “I thought you would be busy doing other things.”

  
“You managed.”

  
“Hardly.” His father grinned at him. “Ask Lucious.”

  
A door opened and that woman came in. “Mister Wayne, good evening.”

“Hello, Aine.”

She gathered up his coat and bag. “There’s the evening paper waiting, sir. Dinner can be rewarmed, though the quality may be less than my usual standard.”

  
She nodded once to recognize Damian’s presence and left.

  
“She certainly has her submissive superciliousness down pat, doesn’t she?” his father drawled.

  
Damian, who had unaccountably bristled at her cool detachment, laughed shortly. “We started off badly.”

  
No explanation was asked. Another thing to make Damian blush a little. He _was_ trying to not be the demon-spawn. He really was.


	2. Chapter 2

“Seems risky.”

  
Damian growled as he pulled himself up the rope, ankles locked. Jon drifted beside him, scrolling through his phone.

  
“I mean, what if she finds out and completely freaks?”

  
Damian wanted to snap a retort, but instead grunted and pulled himself up another few feet.

  
“Does the League have memory erasing tech?”

  
“Manhunter,” Damian gasped out. He touched the rough roof of the Cave with grateful fingers. It was much more work to haul himself around these days. Six feet and two hundred pounds was a lot more than he’d had to deal with as Robin.

  
“Hold on, it’s my mom. Hey, mom…yeah, at Damian’s…I know…kay, love you, bye.”  
Jon’s shoes touched down as Damian did. “Dad’s been called off planet again.”

  
Damian looked up from where he braced himself on his knees. “You know you’re an adult now, right? Don’t have to get permission to come over and play.”

  
Jon shrugged, unembarrassed. “It’s my mom.”

  
Something Damian wouldn’t understand, his expression seemed to say. Well, he didn’t. Even if he had a twinge of jealousy.

  
Jon held four-by-fours for Damian to kick. Much more practical than deforesting the grounds. The splinters bounced off Jon’s chest.

  
“How is it going? Being Batman?”

  
Damian shrugged. “Well enough.”

  
“They let you upstairs, yet?”

  
“Tt, no.”

  
Jon laughed. “I think it weirds out my dad, realizing you’re going to be up there some day. I mean, you used to sleep over at our house.”

  
“So are you.” Damian gave a quick twist and caught a larger splinter on the return kick. It went spinning over the edge of the pit. There was a faint clatter when it hit bottom.

  
Jon looked gloomy. “Maybe.”

  
Damian paused to eye him. “What do you mean?”

  
“Dad’s not looking to retire anytime soon,” his friend said. “Going to be Super Boy for awhile.”

  
Join the League? _Without_ Jon? Damian scowled. Before he could speak, a chime sounded.

  
“What’s that?”

  
The computer had finished a search sequence and the results were displayed.

  
“Drug ring,” Damian explained. “Trying to source the suppliers.”

  
Based on the selling pattern and violent crime rates, the 42nd street docks looked promising.  
Damian checked his watch. Nineteen fifteen.

  
“Let’s go.”

  
Jon protested. “Its too early!”

  
“Its dark out.”

  
“Your dad will kill me!”

  
“Let you ride in the Batmobile.”

Jon groaned and Damian called Pennyworth.

“Yes, sir?”

“Going out.”

“Understood, sir.”

Driving his father’s car was one of the best things about taking over the mantle. Not that Damian had ever attended to traffic laws, but now he had an excuse to break them.

  
He liked breaking rules, he found. Operating independently. Taking risks. When confronted with protests able to say: I’m Batman.

  
Jon wore a mask now, rather than his clunky civilian glasses. He was too well known, friends with the Waynes, his mother a best-selling author, father a known journalist. It gave his still boyish face a mischievous air.  
He grinned as they crept through the rafters of the steel warehouse.

  
“Four of them,” he whispered. “Behind that wall.”

  
Damian switched his optics to thermal. Sure enough, four warm spots, beyond the wall.

The new suit still felt strange, hugging him close. No cape to swirl dramatically. It seemed almost mundane, somehow. Less theater, more business.

  
But good business. They dropped on top of the dealers and pummeled them.

  
Jon settled his two as Damian leaned on the chest of another. The fourth was somewhere back in the shadows, having been hurled there by Damian’s kick. All that lumber had paid off.

  
“B-bat-m-man?”

  
The creep’s confusion was understandable. Different suit, different voice. Different fighting style, though he doubted the man was cognizant of the subtle details.

  
“And Super Boy?” The criminal’s voice squeaked a little.

  
Jon grinned down at him, eyes tinted red, heat vision gathering. “International hero exchange day. Sucks for you.”

  
The man gulped. He gave up his information without further fight.

  
Damian made his way back to the car, satisfied. Just a mid-level crony, but some solid intel to add to his case file. He was going to nail these bastards.

  
Jon asked for details as they went about their patrol.

  
“Dozens have died, overdosed,” Damian explained, Jon’s breathing hissing over the communication link. “A new formula, degrades before chemical analysis can be done. Only metabolites left.”

  
“Untraceable? What are the effects?”

  
“Euphoria, hyper-excitability. Increased strength, lowered pain response.”

  
“Any victims with secondary metabolic injuries? Hepatic failure? Rhabdomylosis?”

His friend’s Midwest drawl continued to trick him into forgetting Jon had just finished his pre-pharm with honors.

“Yes. Not sure the exact number. Again, untraceable.”

  
“Sounds like a Bane toxin.”

  
“Similar effects, but different formulas. No genetic alteration. And no antidote.”

  
“Need to catch one under the effects.”

  
“They have. Any pharmaceutical intervention causes convulsions leading to respiratory failure. They can only wait and see who dies and who lives.”

  
Jon swore, another thing he must have picked up at university.

  
Damian jumped down next to a woman peering through the window of a service door.  
She gave a shivering gasp and sprinted for the street. Damian let her go. Most petty criminals only needed that much, a shadow overhead, the silhouette of his cowl.

  
He laughed delightedly every time.

  
They rendezvoused on a roof overlooking the theater district. Jon passed him a paper bag of something deep-fried. Damian nibbled it and grimaced.

  
Jon ate his portion and then Damian’s.

  
“Remember the Wonder Machine.”

  
“Worked it off tonight.” Jon peeled his mask off. He brushed sweaty hair out of his eyes. “So, what next? Any leads on the source?”

  
It was a natural rhythm, familiar and another thing he had ached for while away at school. Working with his friends, seeing them, patrolling with them.

  
“The victims are from all social classes. No one gang’s territory.”

  
Jon frowned at the skyline. “Could it be poisonings?”

  
“Those who live say they took it intentionally.”  
“They identify their supplier?”

  
“Usual sources for other street drugs.” But Damian felt there was more, something they were hiding.

  
Jon crumpled up the bags and vaporized them, leaving a greasy ash that smeared in the mist. “I’ll ask dad about it. See if there are any cases in Metropolis.”

  
They stood together and Damian smirked that they were eye to eye.

  
“Night, D.”

  
“Night, J.”

His father only sighed when Damian announced he and Jon had spent the night canvasing the city. Damian ignored the ‘no meta’ rule as he ignored any other rule he felt arbitrary.

  
“Get some sleep, son,” he was told. “We have guests tomorrow night.”

His father’s guests were some other wealthy couples, with ivy-league accents and turned up noses. Damian exchanged a look with Selina, whose mouth curved wickedly. She took great enjoyment in draping herself on his father’s arm, diamonds glittering around her neck. Likely stolen.

  
After dessert he suffered through prying questions about his time abroad. As he was trying to cultivate a reputation of lazy indulgence, he had to lounge and share pointless anecdotes, chuckling over late night revelries and famous people he’d met.

  
It was the same personality his father had presented to the world. Made sense his son would adopt the same world weary attitude. Even if it was insufferably dull.

  
He volunteered to fetch more wine. Escaping to the kitchens, he worked out sore muscles in his shoulders.

  
The Ryan woman was there, preparing something at a long work table. He stilled and watched her a moment. She had headphones on, covering any slight noise his stiff shoes might have made.

  
Her head bobbed to the beat as she worked, slicing onions and peppers. He frowned as she shifted to drop her scraps in a bowl, knife flashing as she spun it across her fingers. One smooth motion and she was chopping expertly once more.

  
He stepped into the light. She saw and glanced up. He held up the empty wine bottle. She pointed the knife to a bottle set to chill in an ice bucket.

  
That was typical of their interactions. Mostly grunts on his part and condescending acknowledgement on hers.

  
He didn’t think this would work out.

  
Finally the people left. Alfred shut the door and both Waynes dropped their smiling act.  
Damian emptied his wineglass into the bar’s drain. His others had been discretely removed by Alfred. Selina settled in an armchair and kicked offer her shoes.

  
“Only eleven. Going out, kitten?”

  
Damian grimaced at the cold rain running down the dark windows. “I should.”

  
Bruce opened his laptop. “You can check on Nightfox.”

He sent his father a withering look. The man’s face was set.

  
“Yes, father.”

  
Nightfox was home alone, his arm in a sling. He sat on his couch in the dark, staring at a blank television.

  
Damian stepped in through the bedroom window. Sparsely furnished, a mattress on the floor, wooden crate holding a lamp. Nothing on the walls. Stale smell.

Nightfix saw his shadow on the wall and gasped, jerking to his feet. Damian stared down a gun barrel.

  
“What do you want?” the man demanded, voice and gun wavering.

  
Damian folded his arms over his chest. Nightfox hobbled back, his leg still splinted.

  
“Sit down,” Damian snapped. He snatched the gun out of the man’s grip. He spoke as he disassembled it, tossing the pieces aside. “I came to see how you were recovering.”

The other man’s laugh was shrill. “I’ll…I’ll call the police!”

“Do you even have a phone in this dump?”

  
Nightfox’s throat worked. His voice had weakened to a hoarse whisper. “No.”

  
Damian realized he could see his breath. “Heat? Power?”

  
Nightfox shook his head.

  
“Anyone else live here? Family?”

  
Another head shake. Damian shoved him back to the sagging couch.

  
“You have employment?”

  
“No.” The man had a little spirit left. He looked up and gave a grimacing smile. “Why I was knocking off bodegas.”

  
“I’m taking you to a shelter.”

  
Nightfox protested. “No! This is my place.”

  
“You have no heat. In winter. No job.”

  
“Can’t work now, can I?” Nightfox snarled. His flash of fury quickly died. “Doesn’t matter. Wife gets it all anyway. Three months behind in rent.”

  
Damian hesitated. “Look, I’ll get your power on tonight. In exchange, no more stealing. Understand?”

  
Nightfox sneered up at him. “What’ll you do? Dangle the CEO of the electric company off a ledge?”

  
Glad the darkness hid his flush, Damian activated his com-link.

  
“_What is it?”_

  
“Buy the building I’m in.”

  
“_Why_?”

  
“Investment opportunity. Get the power on in number 514. Tonight.”

  
Nightfox’s eyes were round in the yellowish light filtering in from the streetlights. He licked his lips.

  
“17’s out, too,” he said.

  
“And 517, as well.”

  
“_Why the sudden altruism?”_

  
Damian shut the link down. He passed the man a card. “See these people about work. What’s your name?”

  
“Dinder. Jake Dinder.”

“Employment?”

  
“Construction.”

  
“Remember that. No more Nightfox. No more bodegas. Got it?”

  
“Ye…Yes, sir.”

  
“Who’s in number 17?”

  
“Miss Gracie,”

  
“No, you stay.” Damian pressed him back down.

  
“Don’t scare her!” Dinder warned. “Give the old girl a heart attack!”

  
Damian stole down the dimly lit passage. The floor sagged under the worn carpet. 17 was down and across the hall. He knocked, but there was no answer.

  
He knocked again and tried the knob. It turned, but caught on the chain.

  
“Grace?” he called softly into the darkness. “Grace, are you home?”

  
The screws popped out of the wall with one solid shove and the door swung wide.

  
This side of the building had no streetlights. Something glowed around the corner. He strode forward and found a tiny old woman snoozing in a chair by the light of a sterno can.

  
“Deaf as a post,” Dinder said, waddling in on a crutch. “Oi, Gracie!”

  
She gave a snort and blinked up at them. Wrapped in innumerable knitted afghans, she frowned for a moment, then scowled.  
“He ain’t ‘ere.”

  
Damian dodged the cane swung for his head.

  
“Go on! He ain’t ‘ere and he ain’t been for days!”

  
“Who?” Damian asked, holding the cane away from his face. She tugged at it and gave a huff of annoyance when it didn’t budge from his grip.

  
“Tyler. He ain’t here and I won’t abide him, either! Bringing that filth into my house!”

  
“Her nephew,” Dinder explained in a mutter. “Druggy, gang type. Crashes here when he’s stoned, sometimes. Always shows up when her check’s due. Roughs her up sometimes. Bad kid. Real bad.”

  
Coming from a sometime petty thief, it was not a sparkling endorsement. Damian released her weapon, but she only used it to jab the cushion at her feet. He handed her a small metal disc, about an inch across with a raised button on it.

  
“Your nephew comes back, press that. I want to talk to him.”

She eyed him narrowly. “Why?”

  
He didn’t answer. He’d spent too long here, in any case. He left them there and climbed out of the window he’d entered in.

  
He still hung about the area for a bit, until Dinder’s windows glowed yellow against the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, some swearing in this chapter! :)

More mid-level dealers, more bodies. No leads.

  
Damian drew off the cowl and shook out sweat soaked hair. Even in the cold, he managed to end up drenched.

  
It was almost sunrise; he’d strayed too far and had to rush back home. He hadn’t wanted to test Alfred’s assurance to the Ryan woman that Damian was known to disappear every now and again. For all she knew, he was asleep in his suite.

  
As usual, she was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. He went to the fridge and rummaged around for a protein shake.

  
“Spoil your appetite,” she scolded.

  
“Up early, long workout,” he countered.

  
“Why?” Her gaze raked over him. “Are you training for something? A marathon?”

  
Now he thought about it, a slothful billionaire likely had no reason for such a low bodyfat percentage. “Triathlon, actually.”

  
She had a crease between her eyes. “On a vegetarian diet?”

  
He shrugged.

  
“Well, let me know of you need more fats or protein. You don’t want any muscle wasting.”

  
“Uh…thanks.”

  
Their interactions were less frigid after that. At least, Damian felt he was making strides. If she was to eventually know about them, she would have to be trusted. To be trusted, she had to be a friend. To be a friend, one had to talk and laugh and share experiences.

  
It was much easier when your dad forced you and another kid to work together.

  
He made the mistake of sneaking into the kitchen one frosty morning with his katana still on his back. He’d been running across the grounds – the track could only do so much – and he was cold and hungry.

  
He froze, an apple in each hand, as she cleared her throat. He tried to play it off. “Good morning, Miss Ryan.”

  
She glanced to the hilt over his shoulder. “Good morning, sir.”

  
“Up early?”

  
“Preparing for the dinner tonight.”

  
Damian remembered with a drop of his stomach. “Of course. Yes. Carry on.”

  
She raised an eyebrow, but stood aside for him to pass.

His father kept having these tedious dinners. Business associates, socialites, minor government officials. Damian stood to the side, watching the clock and wishing them all to perdition.

  
His phone beeped. He caught his father’s eyes across the room. The Commissioner’s wry look made Damian smile in response as he wondered out with a vague excuse.

  
A few minutes later he was ripping down the back roads.

  
“_Got it covered_?” His father asked.

  
“Of course.”

  
“_Be careful_.”

  
“I will.”

He tried to be careful, but he managed to catch a few nasty blows. Nothing broken. Maybe non-displaced at worst. Some splinting and he’d be fine. He once fought a gang of ninjas with a broken clavicle and sprained ankle. Well, escaped, but still, survived.

  
“_GCPD is dispatched_.”

  
Damian finished knotting his rope and left the criminals for the police to collect at their convenience. He swung to a new roof and took a moment to breathe. A quiet alert flashed across his vision.

  
“_Hold on, something triggered. In that building you made me buy.”_

  
Damian dropped down onto next building. “Miss Gracie’s prodigal nephew returns.”

  
“_You know I’m going to have to buy the entire block to ensure fair housing options.”_

  
“I thought you wanted more low-income housing in that borough.”

  
“_Retrofitting and subsidizing that one building will increase property values, giving the owners of the other buildings the precedent to further increase rent and drive out tenants.”_

  
“Maybe you’ll inspire them to emulate your shining example.”

  
“_What’s so special about this woman?_”

  
“Want to talk to her nephew.”

  
“_This about that neuro-toxin?”_

  
“Can’t I just be worried about a nice old lady?”

His father’s sigh spoke volumes. “_After this, come in.”_

  
“Why? Hours ‘til dawn.”

  
“_One of those ribs pops loose, you could puncture something.”_

  
Damian scowled as he aimed his grapple for the roof of Miss Gracie’s building. “I’m fine.”

  
“_Damian, you need to pace –”_

  
“Hold on.” Damian’s audio receptors picked up sounds of an altercation. “Something happening inside.”

  
A touch to his cowl and the lenses shifted to a hybrid display, building schematics overlaid with thermal imaging. They were in a back room, no windows on this side.

  
“You fueled up the boosters, right?”

  
“_Wait, what are you --?”_

  
Damian fired his grapple. A running leap and he swung toward the blank expanse of the brick wall. Five seconds.

  
An explosive loaded micro-harpoon lodged in the mortar. Four seconds.

  
A flash and bricks rained down. Three seconds.

  
He dropped the line, protecting his face as he leveled out. Two seconds.

  
A jolt through him as the boosters in the legs of the suit fired. One second.

  
Miss Gracie screamed as he went through the weakened wall. There was an unpleasant crunch in the vicinity of his spleen. He rolled and came up swinging.

  
A man about his own age dropped the weapon he held, a baseball bat, and scrambled back. Fury helped smother Damian’s pain. The suit helped, too, accentuating his movements as he hefted the man and tossed him across room. The man hit the wall with a solid thud and fell onto a sagging chest of drawers, then the floor.

  
Miss Gracie was pressed against the opposite wall, cane at the ready.

  
“Ma’am,” Damian greeted.

  
“Batman!” she shrieked, pointing to the whole punched through her bedroom wall. “Look what you did!”

  
“The fuck…?” Came the groggy complaint from young master Tyler.

  
Damian dragged up him and shook him roughly.

  
“Batman?” The kid’s eyes were wide, but hazy, unfocused. Not the neuro-toxin Damian was looking for. He grunted and let Tyler sag to the ground.

  
“Are you hurt, Miss Gracie?” Damian asked.

  
She sniffed, jabbing in his general direction. “Of course not. I can take care of myself.”

  
The proximity alarm sounded and Damian shifted, catching the bat aimed for his skull. He jerked it from Tyler’s grip and threw it out the hole into the night. That was enough for the boy’s courage. He shrank back, hands up.

  
“Get out!” Damian snarled. “I find you here again, I’ll toss you out the same, got it?”

  
“_Enough with hurling people off buildings, Damian!”_

  
Tyler scrambled out, shouting expletives he as went. A crowd had gathered, peering around the door. They saw him and gasped, many fleeing.

  
“Dinder,” Damian called.

  
“Yes, Batman?”

  
“Make up a bed for Miss Gracie.”

  
“Yes, sir.”

  
She went with poor grace. Damian left them talking in agitated whispers and climbed out the hole. A quick scan of the area showed a form running down an alley.

  
“_Going after him?”_

  
“Need all the intel I can. Anything else pressing?”

  
“_No. Too cold for much activity tonight.”_

  
It was true. The air was sharp. His side ached.

“_Certainly advanced my time schedule for retrofitting that building.”_

  
Damian could only grunt, icy fire spreading from his side.

_  
“Damian, you’re hurt. Come home.”_

_  
“_I’m fine.”

  
“_Now, son.”_

_  
“Kitten, don’t be stubborn.”_

  
Damian groaned. No matter he knew well enough what his father and Selina’s relationship was like, it didn’t mean he liked to think about it. “Go to bed. Both of you.”

  
Selina chuckled. “_You heard him, love.”_

_  
“Come home.”_

  
Damian marked the building Tyler ran in to and turned back. “On my way.”

He rolled over the next morning and groaned. Those non-displaced fractures were intent on displacing themselves. He sat up carefully, trying not to breathe. There was a time he would have been done his best to hide his pain, prove he was strong enough to handle anything.

  
Now he rang for Alfred. Ryan answered.

  
“_Yes, sir?”_

  
Damian froze.

  
“_Sir? Did you need something?”_

  
He couldn’t let her see him like this. She’d ask questions. But he couldn’t get a shirt over his head. If she brought him what he needed, she’d see him. If he went down to get what he needed, she’d see him. See the bandages wrapped tightly around his torso, the scars spangled over his skin.

  
Crap.

  
“_Mister Wayne_?”

  
He feigned a yawn. “What?”

  
“_You rang, Mister Wayne.”_

  
“Sorry, must have bumped it.”

  
“_Did you need anything_?”

  
A few thousand milligrams of ibuprofen and an ice pack. “No.”

_  
“Very well. Breakfast will be ready in twenty-five minutes, sir.”_

  
“Thanks.”

  
It took all of that time to struggle into his pants and shirt. A button up, so he could slide it over his arm. Even that small motion pulled on the seizing muscles between his fractured costal bones.

  
He grimaced at the faint shading to his right eye. A wayward brick had clipped him. There was no disguising the bruise.

  
He could say it was from a doorframe. Or a rowdy game of cricket. Angry girlfriend?

  
“Good morning, sir,” Ryan said as she laid a plate of steaming food before him.

  
“Morning.” He kept his face toward his phone. “Where’s Alfred?”

  
“Under the weather, sir.”

  
Damian had a mouthful of food, some savory vegetable and egg dish, so only grunted. Ryan went on to lay two other plates.

  
“Selina still here, then?”

  
“I assume so. Her car is still in the garage.”

  
Damian winced as he reached for his glass. “She likes warm chocolate, not coffee.”

  
“So I have been informed.”

  
Damian read through Jon’s emoji ridden response to Damian’s adventurous of the previous night. There was even a gif of a tiny cartoon batman slamming into a wall over and over.

  
_ Heard it all the way at the fortress._

  
Miss Ryan finished her work and turned to speak to him again. She checked, frowning. Damian tried to ignore her eyes on his face.

  
“Mister Wayne, would you like some ice for that bruise?”

  
“Hmm?” He was ever grateful for his acting lessons. “Oh, no, I’m fine.” He took an unwary breath and hissed a little.

  
She still didn’t move. “Did you fall, sir? While training?”

  
Training? Oh, right. “Icy patch, slipped. Banged up my ribs, too.”

  
“Do you need a doctor?”

  
The cave equipment had shown him his injuries in perfect detail. “No, just sore. Something for pain would be nice.”

  
She murmured, “At once,” and slipped out.

  
Thankfully, his father and Selina came in before she got back. His father’s eyes narrowed as he smiled. “You’re up and dressed.” The man knew well enough what it was like to have broken ribs and Damian did not appreciate his jibes.

  
“Of course,” Damian said loftily. “Minor injury. Tripped while training.”

  
“Training?”

  
“For my triathlon.”

  
“Your what?”

  
“The triathlon, remember? What else would I be training for?” Damian said sternly, glaring at his bemused parent.

  
Selina started giggling and continued to snicker into her mug as Miss Ryan set a bottle of pills next to Damian’s plate. His phone chimed.

  
_ You know you’re going to have to actually run one, D._

  
Damian finished his meal in dignified silence.

His ribs hurt. He spent the day in his room, researching, planning, strategizing. Jon called and laughed at him for awhile.

  
“I’m going to have Ryan make you kryptonite brownies.”

  
Jon had a rude suggestion and hung up.

  
It took a few days, but he could bend and twist again. His father took over his patrols in the meantime, keeping an eye on things.

  
He wondered if the older man felt the same pang as he did watching the glow of the Batmobile’s engines fade into the mist. Like he was being left behind. That he was being replaced.

  
A few more deaths related to the new drug. GCPD searched doggedly, spurred by bad press and lengthy op-ed pieces on the news. Damian couldn’t find any more information than they had and considered calling Drake.

  
The Ryan woman was a larger presence around the manor. Alfred took her over the various rooms, giving long-winded explanations about each piece of art and priceless knick-knack.

  
She had not progressed to sleeping in house, as Alfred did. Damian frowned when he found her in the kitchen at four in the morning. She had a bowl of apples peeled and sliced in front of her.

  
“Weren’t you here until nine?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

  
“How far away do you live?”

  
“About twenty minutes.”

  
Home at nine-thirty, driving slow for the snow still falling. Another half hour to prepare for bed, a half hour in the morning again. That bowl was full and none of the apples browned, so here at three-thirty to begin work. Only five hours of sleep?

  
“This is ridiculous,” he said.

  
“Sir?”

  
“Do I need to pay off your lease, or do you want to keep a flat?”

  
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  
“Alfred will set up a room for you. Let him know what you need.”

  
He went to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

There were other near misses and injuries that were definitely not training accidents. Damian lied glibly and Miss Ryan appeared to take them at face value.

  
It helped his father was publicly unruffled by Damian’s apparent clumsiness. Even shared embarrassing stories of when his young son had crashed on a bicycle or fallen out of a tree.

  
“Not much has changed,” Bruce chortled.

  
Ryan eyed Damian’s split and swollen lip. “I can see that, sir.”

  
Privately, he was chastised for recklessness. Alfred pulled him aside after a particularly blistering lecture.

  
“He’s worried, that’s all.”

  
Damian knew it and wished that his father was better at expressing his feelings. He wished it for himself, too, only escalating their arguments as guilt and worry made him terse and sarcastic. Maybe it was genetic. The idea was comforting and made him feel better that they were so dysfunctional in that regard. It soothed the fear that his childhood had broken something in him.

The family came for Christmas. Dick and Ryan got along famously. Tim sat in the kitchen and stole tidbits from her bowls. She and Barbara commiserated on the failings of men and admired the Grayson offspring.

  
There was an awkward half an hour when Jason showed up in the middle of dinner. No helmet, but rather scruffy looking. Everyone eyed him. Several hands went under the table, no doubt gripping weapons. Damian clenched his knife, ready to spring away.

  
Miss Ryan proved her mettle.

  
“Shall I lay for you, sir, or would you like a plate to take with you?”

  
Jason stared at her, then barked a laugh. “Fill’er up.”

  
The man ate through four helpings, clapped Dick on the shoulder, and left with a careless, “Later, nerds.”

  
“My second,” Bruce explained. “Something of a black sheep.”

  
“More like red,” Barbara muttered into her glass.

  
They sniggered and Miss Ryan arched an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

  
The Kents came, and Duke and Cass and Selina, and Damian was glad to escape to the city for the night. Jon came with, swearing to keep his powers to a minimum.

  
They busted up some robberies and saved a car from skidding off a bridge into the river.

  
“Reminds you of old times, yeah?”

  
Damian ginned as snow settled on his shoulders. “Yeah.”

Just like old times, they shared a room, Jon stretched out on a cot, Damian laying carefully on his stomach to ease his twinging back muscles. Catching a fully-grown adult plummeting into an icy river did things to a man’s joints.

  
Keeping up his triathlon charade, Damian spent an hour every day in the manor’s ‘normal’ gym. Remnants of Dick’s time as Robin could be seen: tumbling mats, spring boards, a trapeze. Jason’s lifting records were still chalked on the wall. Tim had a collection of staff weapons tucked into a corner.

  
Damian’s contribution was a row of dummies and the swords to stab them with.

  
Now that Miss Ryan was staying in the house, she used the space after breakfast was cleared. They met her on her way out.

  
Jon grinned at her. “Morning, Aine!”

  
“Good morning, Jon.”

  
She looked somehow more human out of her crisp service uniform. She nodded to them and went up to her room, tucked on the opposite side of the family suites, well away from any entrance to the cave.

  
Jon watched as Damian rode the stationary bike. Damian hated the waste of time, but also knew the cardio was helping his endurance. He’d gone up four pounds and he guessed it wasn’t muscle mass. That Ryan woman would be the death of him, overload his grappling lines and send him plummeting to his death on the streets of Gotham. Official coroner report: Billionaire cosplayer killed by his butler’s chocolate croissants.

  
Jon frowned at the weight rack. “What’s your bench?”

  
“What do you mean?”

  
Jon lifted the bar, tilting it to examine the markings on the plates. “How much do you bench?”

  
“290, 300. Why?”

  
Jon set the bar back in its place. “There’s 175 on that.”

  
Damian thought back. He hadn’t used the weights in here for a few weeks. “Maybe it’s Father’s.”

  
Jon sent him a withering look. “Your dad could bench both of us together.”

  
Very likely. “Its not Alfred.”

  
“Tim, then?”

  
“Too light.” Damian kept careful statistics of performance ability on each member of his family.

  
Jon had wondered to the squat cage. “200?” He frowned. “You don’t think…Aine?”

The wheels of the bike hissed as Damian stopped pedaling. “What?”

  
“I mean, she was in here just before.”

  
“Impossible.” Aine was a 36-year-old cook. She was curvy, thick-waisted, maybe five and half feet tall.

  
“Can’t be Selina.”

  
Damian agreed. The woman was strong, but lithe. Very fitting her feline alter-ego.

It continued to bother him throughout the day. After accepting a sandwich from Alfred – Ryan was dressing something for dinner – Damian went down to the cave and pulled up the security footage.

  
He paused mid-bite as the woman cleaned a weight he wouldn’t have been ashamed of. He fast-forwarded the file. She was running on the smaller indoor track, the flash of her passing the cameras marking her laps.

  
Once…twice…five…seven…Damian paused it, the blurred form of her frozen in the center of the screen. He did some quick calculations. She was running at nearly Olympic pace. For over three miles.

  
He tried to draw out details from her.

  
“How do you like your rooms, Miss Ryan?”

  
She glanced up from where she honed her knives. “They are lovely, Mister Wayne. Thank you. I appreciate the extra sleep.”

  
“And the rest of the accommodations?The gym?”

  
“As luxurious as any resort I’ve worked, sir.”

  
Nothing forthcoming there. “I saw on your resume you worked in France for a time.”

  
She held up her blade, looking down the edge. “For a few years.”

  
He switched to French. “How does Gotham compare to Paris?”

  
She added a drop of oil to her stone, responding in kind. “I actually spent little time there. Most of my employment was in estates further afield.”

  
He switched back to English. “Did you do any hiking while you were there?”

  
Her curving, amused smile was much different from her polite one. “Some. Usually too busy to enjoy many leisure activities, though.”

  
Damian forced himself to relate a made-up story of some excursion, a case he and his father had in Belgium with the details stripped away. That’s how one made friends, right? Sharing common experiences?

  
She laughed in all the right places and in turn told him about the time she was stranded in a Portuguese fishing village after her employer forgot her after a house party.

  
“Do you speak Portuguese?”

  
“Badly,” she said in an atrocious accent. “Though my vocabulary greatly increased during that weekend.”

  
Damian reluctantly started to like her. His father did, he could tell. Alfred, definitely.  
But she still ran every morning in the gym, longer and faster than Damian would think her capable.

  
_A meta_? he asked Jon.

  
_ No, only human._

* * *

More dead bodies, some with influential relations. The Commissioner sent him a copy of all the files they had.

  
“Maybe you can find a pattern,” he was told gruffly.

  
Damian spent hours sorting details and making maps. It was the randomness. Some people died and some didn’t. There seemed to be nothing tying them together and without the drug to analyze there was no mechanism of action to track or dose to calculate.

  
“_What makes you think I can figure it out?”_ Tim asked.

  
“You’re smarter than I am.”

  
Tim’s shock was obvious even half-way around the world. _“I’m sorry, did Damian Wayne just admit –“_

  
Damian interceded smoothly. “Even my grandfather recognized your superior intellect in matters of deduction. It is no weakness to enlist specialized support.”

  
Tim grinned wickedly. “_Sure thing, little D_.”

* * *

He had been roped into attending a benefit lunch for something or someone. He stood to the side, holding the same champagne glass he had been given a hour ago, while talk buzzed annoyingly around him.

  
His phone hummed.

  
_42nd and Lewis. Reports of gunfire. GCPD dispatched._

  
The map showed the same complex of warehouses he and Jon had canvassed.

Damian dumped his flute in a potted plant and left through the service entrance.

  
Batman didn’t operate during the day, so a domino mask and non-descript jacket was the best he had. Maybe he should come up with an alter-alter-ego.

He parked a few blocks away and slipped over the fence with ease.

  
He watched while the police cleared the scene, two bodies lying in their own blood, crimson footprints fading to nothing, mostly likely tracked from the killer. Facial recognition showed one of the corpses was the man he had questioned. Drug deal gone wrong?

  
The police were searching through the crates. Some minor gang paraphernalia was found, guns, a bit of heroin, the like. GCPD Vice was all over the building, so Damian went around back to see what he could find.

  
The bloody tracks were faint, but glowed under his filter. They led to an alley and stopped. In a car, then. Security cameras? There, under the eaves.

  
Police were in the dock office, crowded around a screen. Damian settled in a ventilation shaft, a very tight fit nowadays, and watched the video playback.

  
Two masked men came around the building and got in the car. License plate sent back to the cave’s computer gave him an address. Could he get there before the police?

  
Following speed limits was the worst. Especially at four in the afternoon on a Thursday. He managed to find a parking spot in a nearby garage and stuffed his mask in his pocket.

  
_Where are you_? His father demanded.

  
_The toxin case. New lead._

  
He should get Tim to program an emoji just for his father’s exasperated sigh, bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers. He felt the man would get a lot of mileage out of it.

  
_We have guests tonight._

  
_ And I am of irregular habits, remember?_

_  
Important guests_.

_  
JL important?_

_  
No._

_  
Then tell them I’m at my country club or New York or wherever spoiled rich kids go to waste their father’s money._

  
_You’ll be the death of me, child_.

  
It was a nice building, expensive condos above offices. Damian easily hacked the security system and found the correct number. It was a penthouse, reachable only by locked elevator.

No police, yet. Probably tangled up getting a warrant. He set off for the emergency stairs.  
His grapple latched on the railing several dozen stories above. The floors zipped by. Thermal scan showed the penthouse was empty.

  
The door opened on the main foyer, coated in marble and featuring a statue of some goddess, hand flung to the heavens.

  
Damian slipped through to the main living area, wishing he had his full kit. Only so much his mask and phone could do.

  
A sitting room, dining room. Large bedroom down a hall lined with art. Authentic pieces, it looked like. An office. A laptop.

  
His phone decrypted the password in moments. he left it to work and poked around.  
The top drawer was office supplies. The second papers, receipts. The third…

  
Damian lifted a vial and examined the clear liquid by the light of the window. Maybe 20, 30 milliliters. Not temperature controlled. He tucked it into his coat.

  
Bottom drawer held more files, tax documents. A ‘Mr. Adam Johnson’. Very generic and likely an alias.

  
A noise. Damian disconnected his phone and closed the laptop.

  
Nothing on thermal. The elevator mechanism?  
Should he go down the stairs or out the window? A long, cold drop to the street below.

A shadow on the wall.

  
He whirled and caught their blow across his temple. The fine carpet was soft under his cheek and the last thing he saw.

He woke up bound to a chair.

  
He spat blood and swore at himself.

  
“Sir, he’s awake.”

  
“_Finally_.”

  
Damian blinked his vision clear, disoriented by the bright colors. His mask, they’d left it. The thermal display was still active.

  
He made a show of moving his sore neck and got enough pressure on it to switch back to normal.

  
“Stop wiggling.” He was cuffed and it jolted through the lump on his temple.

  
Damian sneered at them. “Who are you?”

  
_“I believe the questions are mine.”_ It was a speaker phone, no picture, a man. “_You are obviously not with the police. I expect them soon, but you know how slow they are. Takes them hours to trace plates, even longer to get clearance to investigate.”_

  
As his consciousnesses increased, so did Damian’s awareness of the room around him. Legs tied to the chair, hands behind him, through the rungs. The art was gone, most of the furniture. Just him and some goons holding a phone.

  
“_So, the obvious question is: who are you and why are you in my flat?”_

  
Damian strengthened his Gotham drawl. “Why don’t you come see for yourself?”

  
“_Unfortunately, I have business out of town this evening. I am afraid this will be our only meeting. A tragic accident, one of my movers killed in a freak fire.”_

  
Damian’s groggy brain finally recognized the cloying, almost sweet smell: gasoline. It shimmered on the marble floor in the dim light. What time was it? Long enough for his father to realized he’d lost communications. No response to the com-link or his phone.

  
His phone…

  
“_Looking for your mobile? Its halfway to Pittsburgh by now.” _

  
Smart, much better than smashing it. That would have activated the emergency beacon. Hopefully the cave’s computer had received the download before they tried to hack it and initiated the memory wipe.

  
_“I admit I am intrigued. Your device carries unprecedented encryption coding. You have the bearing of a man used to conflict.”_

  
“Why leave my mask in place?”

  
_“A man willing to scurry about in disguise likely has a reason to do so. I respect that. And I plan to simply read of your death in the obituaries. Keeps a certain element of intrigue.”_

  
He couldn’t call Jon; the Bat-Supes relationship was too well known. The ropes weren’t tight. Could he get out of them? He started investigating the loops with careful fingers.

  
“Since I’m dead anyway, what’s in those vials?”

  
The man laughed. “_You really are so very cliché.”_

  
“Says the man trying to pull off the creepy super-villain vibe.”

  
“_Oh no, just a business man.”_

  
“What kind of business?”

  
“_You are persistent. Interested in the vials? I’d be happy to give you a sample. Shall we see if you are one of the chosen?”_

  
One of the men drew out a needle-tipped syringe.

  
The elevator chimed.

  
“_What was that?”_

  
The goons wheeled, guns trained for the double doors. They slid open.

  
Damian’s stared as blankly as the guards.

It was Ryan. Wearing a mask similar to his, dressed in black slacks and trench coat, but obviously his father’s cook. Why the hell would father have sent her?

  
She stepped in and stood waiting, hands folded over the handle of a black business case. She looked from face to face until her gaze settled on Damian.

  
She spoke coolly. “I see I have come to the correct place.”

  
The voice was amused. “_And I see you have come prepared to barter. Pointless. You think I need your money?” _

  
She walked to the table and set the case on it, ignoring the guns trained on her chest. “It’s not money.”

  
“_What, then?”_

  
She moved faster than even Damian could follow. Three quiet shots and the men fell, a silvery dart in each of their necks. They twitched for a few seconds, then lay still.

  
Ryan slipped the dart gun back into its holster, hidden under her long coat. The man on the phone was silent. Then: _“It appears I have lost my advantage, ma’am.”_

  
“Indeed.”

  
_“I hope to meet you. Very soon_.”

  
She went to the phone and crushed it under her boot.

  
Damian had loosed some of the ropes. She cut through the rest and helped him stand. Stiff muscles protested and he hobbled to the elevator.

  
She said nothing as they went down.  
Wires spilling out of the control panel showed how she had gained entry. She led him out of the building into the garage underneath.  
She seemed to be searching for something.

  
“Forget where you parked?” Damian asked snidely, hurting and baffled.

  
“Took the bus.”

  
There was no way it was her car. Some sleek machine far above even her generous salary. She held her phone to the handle for a moment and the doors unlocked.

  
He slid into the passenger seat as she drew a key from her pocket. Inserted into the ignition, it beeped and she started the engine.

  
“You’re stealing a car.”

  
“Always wanted one of these,” was the cheerful response.

  
The streets were quiet, early Friday traffic not yet clogging the roads. Damian searched for something to say. “You forgot your briefcase.”

  
“No, I didn’t.” She drew out her phone and tapped the screen.

  
Damian jerked around as the mirrors caught the explosion. The penthouse windows rained glass onto the snowy streets, sparkling like the ice hanging from the streetlights.

  
“There were civilians in there!” he snarled.

  
“They were going to kill you,” she pointed out. True: he stank of gasoline.

  
“The vial! I needed that-“

  
She held up the syringe. He took it with shaking fingers.

  
She peeled off her domino. “How about some breakfast, Mister Wayne?”

* * *

Frankly, he was too nonplussed to resist as she drove to the other side of town and pulled up before a diner tucked under a shabby apartment building. She tossed her specialized key to a man wearing a parka over a dirty apron.

  
“Hey, Jimmy. Sorry it took so long. Clean her up for me, pretty please?”

  
The man grinned around his cigarette.

  
Damian climbed out and followed her into the restaurant.

  
She was greeted warmly and shown to a table. The wall clock showed 5:16 and the air was redolent of fried onions.

  
People sat singly and in pairs, drinking coffee and staring at their phones. A woman came bustling out of the kitchen with a beaming smile.

  
“Ainsley!” Portly and graying, she wiped her hands on her apron and squished Ryan’s cheeks. “Look at you! So skinny!”

  
“Hah!”

  
“And who is this handsome young man?” Damian hated the flush that rushed up his face as her eyelashes fluttered. “Early plans? Or not gone to bed yet?”

  
Ryan smacked her with a laminated menu. “Neither, nosy old woman. I’m nearly old enough to be his mom. Business.”

  
Something shifted in the woman’s face, though her smile remained fixed behind her pasty lipstick.

  
“You said you were taking some time off,” she accused.

  
“Just a little free-lance. Have to pay the bills, you know.”

  
The fake smile flattened. “Those swells not treating you right?”

  
“Oh, no, they’re great. Salary’s good, but not enough for this.” She was writing something on a paper napkin, consulting her phone. Damian’s fingers itched to have it, let Tim dig through it.

  
Ryan handed the woman the napkin, blue numbers inked across it. “Had Jimmy do a little detailing for me.”

  
The woman huffed, but stuffed the napkin in a pocket. “Well, sit tight. Mama Sue will bring you something to eat.”

  
“Thanks, sweetie.”

  
That earned Ryan a rap on the head and a snort.

  
Damian had learned that silence was usually the best tactic when completely confused. It made one seem not confused. Ryan sipped her coffee and scrolled through her phone, identical to the other occupants.

  
Except her suit was of finer fabric, the same quality his were tailored from. And now he thought to look, could see the harness lines under her long coat, the bump of a knife at her hip. What he had taken for mid-thirties pudge covered the firmness of muscle underneath.

  
Before long, a plate was slapped before him. Vegetarianism notwithstanding, the bacon smelled amazing. He picked at the eggs and potatoes, organizing his questions.

  
Ryan buttered a slice of bread and took a bite.  
“Asked for the day off sick,” she said around her mouthful. “Alfred is on duty today.”

  
He grunted. One question answered. She went on. “What’s in that vial? And who is Adam Johnson?” 

She slid her phone across the table. The headline read: Breaking News: Gas Explosion in Chesapeake Tower. “Lists Johnson as the tenant.”

  
He could truthfully say, “I don’t know.”

  
She grunted and spoke around another large bite, this time of omelet. “What’d you do to piss him off? Not pay up?”

  
Damian bristled. “I don’t use drugs,” he snapped.

  
She raised an eyebrow. “Why else would you sneak out at night and get the crap kicked out of you?”

  
Her eyes were hard. Odd, as brown eyes were usually described as warm, soft.

  
“I…”

  
She broke her stare and waved to Sue. The woman brought the bill.

  
“That number run through?” Ryan asked.

  
“Yes and thank you.”

  
Ryan gave her an almost wicked grin. “Excellent service, as always.”

  
Damian had only taken a few bites, but was grateful to follow Ryan back out into the cold.  
Jimmy was waiting, the sports car purring at the curb.

  
“Clean as a whistle, miss A!”

  
Ryan blew him a kiss and settled in the driver’s seat. Jimmy handed her the specialized key. Damian looked; sure enough, a new key stuck out of the ignition.

  
Without comment or direction, Ryan drove him back to his car, now with a parking ticket under the wiper. She dangled his keys for him to take.

  
“They were in your pocket still.”

  
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. He hadn’t felt her pilfer them.

  
“No problem,” came the easy answer. “Watch yourself, out there. See you tomorrow.”

  
Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe just shock. But he drove home and endured his father’s scold wordlessly.

  
It ended with an enfolding embrace. Damian squeezed him back.

  
“You alright?” his father asked.

  
“Yeah.” But he still said nothing of Ryan’s help.  
Before he went to his room, he ran the stolen car’s plates.

  
Ryan’s information stared back at him. Purchase records, registration renewals. Toll receipts. An accident report from a few years previous, fender bender. Even a speeding ticket, paid in full.

  
Damian slammed the laptop closed and went to shower.


	5. Chapter 5

As Damian ate Ryan’s perfectly poached eggs, he considered.

She was some sort of private operative, as Dick had spent some years doing. Or a government agent, maybe retired for a blown cover.

Or she was a threat and would need to be eliminated.

Which was too bad, because she made an amazing chocolate chip cookie.

* * *

“Structurally, it is similar to an amphetamine,” Bruce said, twisting the computer’s rendering of the molecule.

“Explains the euphoria.” Damian held up the vial, a few milliliters still sloshing around inside. “That man, he said something about being chosen, that using this would show if I was one of them.”

His father scowled. “I hate cults.”

Damian hesitated, then spoke calmly. “I lied to you.”

His father’s face did not show much surprise. It made Damian squirm like he was thirteen again.

“What about?”

“I didn’t escape. Ryan helped me.”

“Who is Ryan?”

“Aine Ryan. Our butler-in-training.”

It took a lot to baffle the Bat, but that did it. “What.”

“She found me, took out three men. Blew up the flat. Stole a car. And had it cleaned, records rewritten. Bought me breakfast.”

His father’s bellow echoed from the depths of the cave. Pennyworth was unperturbed.

“_You yelled, sir?”_

“Get down here, now!”

Damian wondered if this was what normal children felt like, watching their parents argue. He stood awkwardly between his father and Alfred, trying not to make eye contact with either.

“You said she was _safe_.”

Alfred frowned. “You asked me to find someone capable, Master Bruce, not ‘safe’.”

“How do you know her?”

“Not personally, sir. A trusted friend, his niece.”

So at least that part was true.

“This _friend_,” Bruce hissed. “Who is he?”

“From my service days,” was the evasive answer. Damian had done some research and Alfred’s past was as murky as it came. They didn’t talk about it: actions mattered more than background checks.

“Threat in my home,” his father was growling.

“Proved her worth, hasn’t she?” Alfred challenged.

Damian had to speak up. “I would have been able to escape.” His stubborn honest streak made him add, “Though, likely with severe burns.” Curse Jon and his good influence. “Where are you going?” Damian asked sharply.

His father scowled. “To see how much she knows.”

“No.”

Surprisingly, the man stopped. “Why not?”

Damian wasn’t sure himself. “She…she didn’t actually _say_ she knew I was Batman. That you were Batman.”

“Tell me _exactly_ what was said.”

Even better, his mask had recorded the entire thing, albeit a little muffled once he had stuffed it in his pocket.

After, Bruce stared at the screen. Then he swore and stalked off.

Lunch was awkward. The both of them were skilled actors, but there was an unmistakable tension. Ryan appeared unruffled, though Damian saw her quick look between them. But that was it, her voice as bland as it had always been. No thickened brogue, no glinting smile.

“Delicious, as always?” Bruce told her as she took his salad plate.

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

“My eldest will be here for dinner tomorrow.”

“I’ll whip up something special.”

“You spoil us, Aine.”

“Just doing my job, sir.” She softened this chilly rebuff with a hint of a smile.

“And you’ve done it well.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. Praise for her actions yesterday?

“Thank you, sir. I hope my service continues to be satisfactory.”

* * *

Tim looked tired. Not unexpected, as it was three in the morning in his timezone.

“_I can’t find a pattern, either.” _His tone was bewildered. “_There is nothing linking these deaths together, other than the drug.”_

Damian swiped through the various graphs and tables Tim had compiled.

“_The **only** thing that may be a trend is the victims are getting richer. The average yearly income has increased dramatically over the past few months.”_

Damian frowned. “Isn’t that unusual? A designer drug starting amongst the poor?”

Tim shrugged. “_Maybe_. _I haven’t done a lot of research in that area.”_

But a man like this ‘Adam Johnson,’ who was safely ensconced overseas in a neutral territory, would he preferentially sell the drug to alley junkies? It didn’t make sense. He was a business man, as he had claimed.

“_The number of deaths is falling off, too. At least, those reported as overdoses.”_

Fewer deaths? Or falsified causes of death? Money bought silence, as Alfred so aptly pointed out. Damian’s paternal grandfather was a doctor because he was a billionaire, not the other way around. Jon had described the strained circumstances of his medical peers more than once.

“Thank you, Tim. I appreciate your analysis.”

“_Anytime, Damian. Really,”_ he added with sudden emphasis. “_Please, I want to help, anytime you need it.”_

Irritated by the now awkwardness of the call, Damian forced out a clipped “Thanks,” and hung up.

* * *

Barbara and the children didn’t come with Dick, away visiting some touristy place. Damian went to Dick’s room after the house was asleep and told him the whole story.

His eldest brother’s expressive face clearly showed his emotions. Irritation at being wakened, interest, concern, exasperation, shock, then amusement. He ended by grinning wickedly.

“You told B?”

“Of course.”

Dick rested his chin in his hand. “Who do you think she is?”

This puzzled Damian the most. “She comes up clean on every search.”

“Must be an assumed name.”

“Obviously. It is the completeness of the forgery that is astonishing. Birth certificate. Utilities receipts. Her paper trail is impeccable. I tried to use facial recognition to find any record of her overseas activities, but the sheer amount of visual data will take weeks to process.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?”

Damian was about to call his brother an idiot when a muffled crash sounded.

They jumped up and crept toward the continued disturbance. A man’s voice, swearing, sounding remarkably like…

“Jay?”

Dick flicked the switch on in the kitchen. The bright lights reflected off the pans hung from the wall and the knife pressed against the Red Hood’s throat.

Ryan had him shoved against the wall, the finely honed edge of her blade up under his chin. Two other of her kitchen knives stuck out of the wall on either side of the man’s head. A fourth’s keen point touched his navel.

Jason scowled at them.

“Call her off!”

Something remarkably like a snort escaped Dick.

Damian stepped in. “Miss Ryan, you can release him.”

She did, knives glinting once more as she spun them, still in a defensive stance. A heartbeat and she was their banal cook once more.

“Mr. Todd!” she exclaimed. “I am _so _sorry!” She fussed around, pulling the knives from the wall, picking up the sheets pans scattered on the ground. “You scared me! I didn’t realize you were in the house.”

Damian glared at Jason, who touched his throat tenderly. “Yes, Jason. We didn’t know you were coming home tonight. I thought it wasn’t until _tomorrow_.”

Todd made a face, half wry, half annoyed. “Sorry.”

“Shall I fetch your father, sir?”

“No,” Jason said swiftly. He took a step and winced. “_No,”_ he insisted as Dick took a breath to speak. “I’m _fine_.”

The stiffness of his leg said otherwise, as did the pallor of his cheeks.

“A meal?” Ryan prompted, the swift flick of her eyes showing she had noticed his leg as well.

“Sure, yeah, whatever.”

Damian followed the older men, Jason’s arm finding its way over Dick’s shoulders. By the time they reached Jason’s old room, he wasn’t putting any weight on the leg.

“What happened?”

“Knife wound. Won’t heal.”

Damian helped the grudging vigilante out of his pants and pushed him into the bed. “Who? How?”

“Some junkie,” Jason explained, pausing to hiss as Dick unwound the heavy bandaging. It was ugly looking, red and inflamed.

“When did this happen?” Dick demanded.

“Night before last.”

“Why didn’t you get treatment?”

Damian thought Jason’s eyes grew more luminous every year that passed. Would his do the same, tainted by the Pit?

“Usually don’t need it,” Jason said gruffly

They scrambled at a knock.

“Master Jason?”

“Don’t let her in here!”

Damian tossed a blanket over him.

“Honestly? I don’t think any of us could stop her.”

Miss Ryan came in with a loaded tray. Food, water, bandages, and vials of something medicinal.

“You have a surprisingly well stocked first aid kit, Mister Wayne,” she announced. “May I…?”

Jason scowled at her. “I’m not injured.”

Ryan’s raised eyebrow spoke volumes. “In my short time here, I have observed that most members of your family are prone to the same clumsiness as your younger brother.”

“We’re _not_ brothers.”

“Then we can’t blame genetics, can we? I wonder what else could cause such a familial predilection for bodily injury.”

There was a long moment of tense silence, which Ryan broke by smiling with sudden kind humor. “Please, Jason. I can help.”

Damian, who had bristled at Jason’s denial of their relation, vented his annoyance with: “Don’t be an ass, Todd. Show her.”

Her face showed no emotion as she examined the angry wound. Definitely a knife, maybe a small sword. Not Jason’s usual crowd; they were more likely to use bullets.

“This will need stitches,” she announced. Jason grunted as she prodded with careful, gloved fingers. “Master Dick, do you know how to draw up a sterile injection?”

“Of what?” Jason asked suspiciously.

“Lidocaine.” Ryan readied a pair of forceps with an ominous air. “Do you want something to bite on?”

“No.” But his refusal had the slight lift of a question.

Dick had the needle ready. Jason’s lips tightened, but that was all the reaction he made as she injected the anesthetic around the wound.

“Now, brace yourself.”

Her head blocked Damian’s view. Jason growled an oath, ending with a pained grunt. Damian peered around her in time to see her draw something free with the forceps. She dropped it into a bowl with a metallic clank. Fresh blood welled up, which she wiped away calmly.

“There is a bottle of sterile saline, Master Dick, if you please.”

She dirtied several towels, but soon the wound started running pink. The three of them watched while she stitched it closed and bandaged it.

“There. Should feel much better now.”

Dick had taken the forceps and was examining the shard. A piece of a blade, it looked like, smeared crimson.

“There are pain killers with the food,” Ryan said, stripping out of her gloves. “Antibiotics may be in order, but I defer to your primary physician. If you need anything else, please ring for me. Good night, gentlemen.”

The door closed. Dick started laughing. It opened again and Bruce looked in, hair rumpled and face creased with sleep.

“What on earth is going on?”

Dick only laughed harder.

Bruce wiped the shard clean, twisting it so it caught the light. “There’s writing here.”

Damian didn’t recognize the script etched across it.

“Who did you say did this?”

Jason was eating through the pile of sandwiches. “I dunno who. Some methed out tweeker. Attacked me. Waving a big ass knife around.”

Bruce frowned at the wayward Robin. “Where?”

“South of the train yards. Cobblepot’s territory.”

Damian knew well the flattening of his father’s brow. But the man also knew how Jason would react to a lecture, especially at this time of night, in this frame of mind.

“Call me, next time,” he insisted. “Please.”

Jason’s hard eyes didn’t quite reach Bruce’s. “I can handle myself.”

Jason left early the next morning, hardly limping at all. He passed through the kitchen where Damian sat in front of a plate of hot breakfast. He’d been out until dawn and had only stopped to remove the suit before seeking out calories.

“Who the hell is that woman?” Jason muttered as he passed.

Damian shrugged, mouth full.

“She knows how to field stitch?”

“And make bombs.”

“_What_?”

“Chesapeake Tower. That was her.”

Jason eyed him. “Your dad know?”

“Yes.”

“And he was cool with it?”

“Saved my life.”

Jason snorted. “Double-standard much?”

“Stop shooting people and he’ll be more understanding.”

“Hard pass, demon baby.”

“Piss off. French toast?”

The Red Hood grabbed a handful and slipped out the back door.

* * *

There was nothing special about the composition of the blade shard. A standard alloy for commercial knives. The etching had been added after, not part of the casting.

Damian sat with chin in hand and stared at the fragment of script displayed on the screen. No known language used it. Some of the symbols were familiar, but not coherent.

Alfred tidied the room around him, a useless exercise as Damian never left a mess.

“Perhaps a code, sir. Something derived.”

Damian had an algorithm running already. “I want to see where it happened.”

Alfred spoke in a voice devoid of all emotion. “Master Jason will not appreciate your meddling in his business.”

Damian knew this well enough. Several times intentionally misaimed bullets had shrieked by his cowl, a warning from the Red Hood to back off.

“Batman oversees Gotham, not the Hood. And he owes me.”

“I doubt Master Jason will see it that way, sir.”

Damian didn’t care and said as much before going to get ready for the night’s patrol.

* * *

It was an alley much like hundreds of others. Dank, littered, malodorous. Security footage had shown the Hood strolling down and a man leaping out at him from a doorway.

Damian found the same doorway and picked the lock. It was a storage facility, long hallways with locked rooms. A night guard, snoring at the front desk.

Damian walked the halls, watching for movement or heat signatures.

“_Already canvased it, dumbass.”_

Damian retraced his steps, counting paces. “And with your usual ability to miss the obvious, Todd.”

Jason’s bulk loomed around the corner. “What’d’you find?”

Damian wasn’t sure. There was a door missing. “There should be something here.”

The numbers weren’t out of order. The wall smooth, no hint of why a unit was skipped.

“What are the dimensions of these units?”

His father answered. “_According to the building plan, eight foot by ten foot.”_

Jason was already inside the closest one, shoving boxes aside.

“_Here’s the edge,”_ he said. A light knock on the wall was yards from the next door.

“There’s a whole unit missing.”

“_Mechanical room?”_

“No heat from inside.”

“_Huh.”_ The wall trembled. “_Hey, demon spawn, you’re right.”_

“Of course, I’m right.” Damian went in to find Jason half through the hole just kicked through the wall.

“Goes down, Dames. Come on.”

“_Be careful, boys.”_

A set of cement stairs led down into a roughly finished room. Fluorescent lights cast a pale glow over the tables. A stairwell went up on the opposite wall, likely where the access door was located.

“An old basement, maybe?”

“_Not on the current blueprints. Must have been sealed up when the building was retrofitted four years ago.”_

“Drug lab,” Jason said, peering into beakers. “Not meth, though.”

Damian collected samples as the other man rifled through shelving.

“Hey, you still got that cutting torch Bats carried?”

Resisting the urge to smack him with it, Damian handed Jason the tool. A safe was set under a desk and the torch cut it open in moments.

“Cash, papers,” Jason narrated as he pulled the contents out. “What’s this?” He passed over a sealed vial of a black powder.

Damian tucked it away. “Anything else?”

“Nope.” Jason slipped the stack of money into his pocket. Damian couldn’t see his face, obviously, but knew well the man’s unrepentant grin. “Have to make it look like a real robbery, right?”

Damian sighed and heard his father do the same. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

As they climbed back out, Jason tossed something over his shoulder. It clattered down the stairs.

“Low power grenade,” he explained. “Wreck the place, but won’t bring down the building. I’d walk faster.”

Outside, the Red Hood gave him a wave and took off down the alley. The ground rumbled and Damian swung up to the roof.


	6. Chapter 6

“Does this Johnson own that storage facility?

“I haven’t found a connection. Yet.”

Damian picked up a bit of the black powder with a pair of tweezers and placed it on a clean, glass slide. It was incredibly fine, powdery and dull.

His father grunted, watching the mass spectrometer work. “No police report for the bombing of his flat, either. At least, not publicly.”

“The Commissioner has a special task force looking into his businesses and associates,” Damian said dryly. Bruce laughed and Damian grinned. “Hopefully their clumsy efforts will keep his attention occupied.”

Slide ready, Damian set up the microscope. The computer screen shifted as he adjusted the focus.

“Zoom in, son.”

Damian did, moving the lens to highlight on one grain.

His father sat forward suddenly. “Again.”

Damian saw it, too. It wasn’t a grain, it was a –

“Robot?” he said. Under the dim light of the microscope, the mechanical body of the insect-like robot was clearly displayed.

“A nano-bot of some sort.” Bruce adjusted the color. “Only 15 micrometers, barely larger than a red blood cell. Do you think…?”

Damian was already prepping a second slide with a drop of the liquid from Johnson’s flat.

Dozens of the things floated in the clear liquid. Damian sat back, scowling at the monitor.

“So, this Johnson is selling this drug, filled with the nanobots. Once injected, the chemical reaction kicks in, the mania, euphoria, etc. These robots…what? Are activated by something? And then what? And why do so many people die?”

His father drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Might be a reaction to the robots. An inflammatory response.”

Damian strode to the emergency supplies. He hated to waste it, but he took a unit of his blood from the fridge.

He spent the time the unit needed to warm to body temperature taking pictures of the bots from various angles. There were few facilities that could manufacture the components needed for such sophisticated nano-tech. Maybe he could track down Johnson’s suppliers.

“What are you thinking, Damian?”

Damian carefully transferred a few milliliters of his blood to a half dozen vials. “Something activates these nanobots. Some people survive and some don’t. What is the catalyst? Is it blood type? Presence of a hormone? Radio signal?”

Damian doubted the drug itself did anything, but prepared the last of the vial taken from the penthouse just to be safe.

“Chosen…” his father mused. “Somehow compatible. To what end?”

In a saline solution, the powder was invisible. Damian placed a few drops in each vial. It took time to prepare a good smear, but soon he had ready samples.

The sample with the drug from Johnson’s flat showed them starkly how close Damian came to death that night.

“Lysed,” Bruce said tersely. Damian grimaced at the screen, the ruptured red blood cells splattered against the glass slide. “Not chosen, apparently.”

“Is it the drug or the bots?” Damian wondered.

The smear with only the saline showed the same result.

“I’ll run a search for unexplained deaths related to infarcts or hemorrhaging.” Bruce’s typing made a familiar staccato mutter in the background as Damian readied a frequency emitter.

He almost jumped out of his chair as the bots on the screen came to life. They skittered across the slide, pointed limbs jabbing. Damian shut off the signal and they froze in place.

“Well, that’s creepy.”

“To put it mildly.” Bruce turned the emitter on again and watched the bots crawl around, moving over the remnants of Damian’s erythrocytes. “But the purpose?”

“_Mister Wayne?”_

His father let out the smallest huff of irritation. “Yes, Miss Ryan?”

“_I wanted to go over the wine list with you for tomorrow’s brunch.”_

Bruce checked his watch and scowled. His voice stayed cheerful despite the furrow between his brows. It had taken Damian months to get used to the visual dissonance when his father used his ‘Bruce’ voice on the phone.

“Three o’clock already? Be right down, Aine.”

_“Yes, sir_.”

“I swear on the giant penny,” Damian warned, “if these _idiotic_ social events are to find me a wife…”

Bruce smirked. “Review the search results. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Alone the cave, watching the nanobots creep around made him uneasy. He rubbed sudden goosebumps from his arms and called Jon.

“_Up early?”_

“Ha, ha. I need a crash course in hematology. Can you come over?”

“_At a party, actually. What specifically?”_

“That drug we’ve been tracking, its laced with nanobots.”

_“For what purpose?”_

“I don’t know. They just crawl around. Whose party?”

“_You don’t know them.”_

That narrowed it down to seven and a half billion people. Jon could be obstinately vague when he pleased.

“I put some of the drug in a sample of my blood.”

“_What happened?”_

“Lysed.”

There was the sound of a door closing and the noise dropped. “_Damian, that means-“_

“That I’m dead if they get me. Yeah, I know.”

Jon was silent for a moment. “_You need to determine the pH of the drug and its osmolality. Both of these can cause hemolytic reactions, besides the chemical composition itself.”_

“I’m out of the one sample I managed to get my hands on.”

Jon sighed. _“D, I** really** can’t. My dad and I are needed-”_

“I know. Father told me.”

_“Be careful, please.”_

“Tt. I never take uncalculated risks.”

_“Knowing the danger does not negate it!” _Jon said fiercely.

“Alright, granny Kent. Sheesh.”

“_Make sure you use the same dilution they do. And the same route! Absorption is affected by muscle and adipose mass.”_

“Enjoy your party.”

“_Be safe_. _I’ll keep an ear out.”_

“Thanks, Jon.”

What Damian needed was to observe the administration of this drug to one of the ‘chosen.’ If they lived, he could get a sample of their blood and figure out the mechanism.

Finding run-of-the-mill dealers was easy. The batcave database listed most of the active and retired members of the illicit pharmaceuticals community. Also, they tended to be boringly predictable. Fancy car in a slummy borough, hired muscle, delusions of grandeur. They stood out as clear as the batsignal.

Should he be so inclined, he could kick down any random door in the Narrows, dangle the overdressed schmuck inside by his ankles and expect evidence to fall out of their pockets like spare change.

It was a solid strategy if he were looking for heroin or meth. Designer drugs needed real money. Real money meant Gotham elite. Gotham elite meant…

“Bullocks,” Damian muttered.

* * *

Her name was Kayla or Kylie or something. She had giggled as she said it and Damian could not force himself to inquire again. The diamonds dangling from her ears and her mother’s staggering stock options made her ideal.

She was a nice enough girl, he supposed. She professed a profound love of animals and claimed to have read a book once. It made the evening tolerable.

He’d singled her out a few weeks ago. She had slipped away from the party with a few friends and returned glassy eyed a half hour later. Tonight, he did his best to be ubiquitous and charming and was rewarded with a tug on his arm.

“Come on,” Kayla/Kylie said, grinning mischievously. He followed her away from the heat and noise of the house party and upstairs. Others had done the same, for various reasons, and Damian was a little surprised at the heat that washed up his face. If she wasn’t up here to get high…

He was almost grateful to see them crowded around the table, faces hungry. Kayla offered, pouting expertly at his refusal.

Damian leaned against the door frame, dredging up every ounce of his Wayne ennui. “Vertigo?”

This Kayla laughed at him. “New formula. Just last week.”

Damian was aware and was already planning a visit to the main suppliers tomorrow night. “Tried it. Boring.”

“Boring?” she repeated.

He eyed a man about his age passed out on the bed. “Get snowed. Then what?”

He was sorry he asked. She slinked over to him. His earpiece chirped for an incoming signal.

“_Damian, where are you?”_

Great. Just his luck, _now_ is when his father would check in.

“Come on, Wayne,” Kayla cajoled, tugging at his arm again. “Try it.”

“_Try **what**_, _Damian_?”

Damian supposed he should have warned his father prior to this reconnaissance mission. “No,” he said firmly.

One of the others taunted him. Damian laughed with them, doing his best to parrot his father’s affable public persona. “Thanks for the offer, but it’s really not my thing.”

“What is?” Kayla asked, still pressed against him. Drunk he guessed, and about to add another powerful depressant. He'd call the paramedics once he got out of here. “I’ve got all sorts of fun up here.”

She listed them off, fingers walking up his chest with each item. He shrugged and hoped his flush wasn’t too noticeable in the dim light.

“Only the best for a Wayne,” she purred.

_“Damian…”_

He also hoped they were high enough to not get suspicious. “What about AMPH.”

Kayla frowned up at him. “What’s that?”

Damian had just made it up. He watched the others carefully. “Johnson had it. Skipped town before I could get some.”

Their blank stares were from more than drug. Dead end.

Heaven sent; his phone rang. His new phone, with added software for the chip implanted in his chest, tracking his location, vital signs. His father’s worry at his brief kidnapping manifested itself in new bat-tech and oppressive nannying.

“Wayne.”

“_Damian Wayne, **what** are you doing?”_

Damian hung up. “Have to go.”

A predictable remark about being a daddy’s boy. He grinned and shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Spent all my pocket money for this quarter.”

Their slurring laughter followed him out of the room. He suppressed a shudder. He’d spent years training to power through the effects of different toxins and drugs. To willingly inject himself with poison, to allow such vulnerability…it made his skin crawl. He’d take fear toxin any day. At least that he could fight.

Speaking of which. Footsteps padded behind him, moving in short bursts, crisscrossing the dark hall. Trying to sneak up on him. Damian went around a corner and waited.

The would-be assailant choked, eyes bulged. Damian released the man, one of the others from the group he’d left behind.

“Oh, sorry,” Damian said cheerfully, straightening the man’s color. “Reflex. Kidnapping training, you know. So sorry.”

The man grunted and smoothed his hair. “You said you know Johnson?”

“Talked with him a few weeks ago.” He grinned at the truth of his lie. “Why?”

“I…” the man licked his lips. “Are…are you…” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “One of the Chosen?”

Damian hesitated. He had no idea how they identified each other, what hierarchy made this cult. “Like I said, Johnson left before he could make good on his promise.”

“There are others,” the man said swiftly, looking from side to side with darting eyes. “I can get you a meeting.”

Damian made a show of considering. Then he drew out a card from his pocket. “Send details to this number.” A few crisp bills were passed along as well.

The man made a jerking motion of his head and scampered back the way he came.

Damian answered his phone again. “Wayne.”

“_The car’s here. We’re leaving. Now.”_

“On my way.”

“You really think I was in danger from those junkies?” Damian asked with a wry smile.

His father sighed. “No, but-“

“And I got a lead on the drug.”

“Yes, but-“

“Dad,” Damian wheedled. The streetlights flashed across his father’s face, set in a stern scowl.

Before the man could come up with more objections, Damian’s phone chirped. A text from an unknown number. It listed an address and time for next week. Damian back-traced the number and cross referenced to the guest list.

“You know the Rinaulds?”

“A little. They have an import business.”

Damian looked up the address. It was a hotel, catering to millionaire travelers. "And I got a location for one of these "Chosen" meetings."

"I'm working on an antidote," his father said. "And tracking the components from the bots."

The date was for next Wednesday. Seemed a mundane sort of day for a meeting of cultist fanatics. But it gave him plenty of time for preparations.


End file.
